Contributor Spotlight: Brad Kerstetter
Brad Kerstetter’s nonfiction piece “3 Bodies, 1 Year: A Number’s Tale” is featured in Issue 75 of the Bellingham Review.
What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?
This was a unique piece, and a good learning example for me in how to trust what doesn’t work and what does. I tried to write it in different tenses and point of views, none of which worked. But once I used the second person it clicked immediately, in part, because it allowed me to distance myself from the story and write more objectively as if I wasn’t writing about myself at all. The set of dates that so neatly book-end these events gave it structure and eventually led to its chronological organization.
Tell us about your writing life.
At the heart of my writing is the need to connect and communicate with others over ideas. I love to think, talk and argue ideas. There’s not always somebody available (or willing) to grapple over ideas. Writing fills that void, allows me to ponder and discuss ideas with my characters. From poetry to letter writing I have been doing this all my life and suspect it will continue until I die.
Which non-writing aspect(s) of your life most influences your writing?
At heart, I am an adventurer. I climb, I ski, I sea kayak. The outdoor, natural world is my religion. I pray to the snow gods, I sacrifice skis, mountains are my temples, water is my verse. That will always be part of my writing.
What writing advice has stayed with you?
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.
What is your favorite book (or essay, poem, short story)? Favorite writer(s)?
As a white, middle-aged guy I find there is less and less fiction being marketed towards my demographic, which is a good thing. We’ve had our hey day. Not many want to read about our recycled problems. Having said that, I do enjoy a good male voice, because it is what I most relate to. Cormac McCarthy, Tim Winton, Abraham Verghese come to mind. But, I absolutely love Annie Proulx. She writes like nobody else.
What are you reading right now?
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.
What project(s) are you working on now, or next?
The never ending projects of revising short stories. I consider my stories to be like bottles of wine. I let them sit for a year. Then I open them up, and if I can read what I wrote and not gag, then I let them breath. If not, then I start over.
Anything else our readers might want to know about you?
BRAD KERSTETTER is a stay-at-home father/builder/writer. When he is not tearing apart walls, rewiring, and rebuilding his fixer-upper, then he is tearing apart sentences and rebuilding paragraphs. His short stories have appeared in Prick of the Spindle, The Oddville Press, and Abstract Jam.
Featured Image: “Numbers” by Ged Carroll